i'm feeling boaty

Leaving London, ready or not

It is a beautiful sunny sunday morning, and I am sitting wrapping glasses, staring out of the window, waiting for my beloveds dad to arrive in his van.

The light streams in throught the third floor window, and the birds twtter fiercely at each other in the North Londonese trees.

A bus drives past. The bus I will never again catch to work. Or until we get sick of the commute and move back, anyway. Another bus – a bus the might have carried me home one of any nights in the last three years.

Oh look! There is the man from flat four. I do hope we get to say goodbye to him later. This is what I will say:

Oh! It is the man from flat four! Gosh, this is just like the day we moved in, isnt it? Except it was raining that day, of course. Do you remember that day? You walked past us, standing at the bottom of all these stairs, me, my beloved and our friend dave, contemplating the graft ahead as our boxes slowly got soggy and fell apart.

And you spoke to us, do you remember? You said Are you moving into flat 8? And we said yes. And you said You dont have a parking space, you know.

And we said Yes, thanks, we know, we dont drive. And you said Good. And then you looked at all our boxes. And then you said Do you know if your landlady has fixed the overflow pipe yet? It used to drip like nobodys business on number 1s porch, and they had words and they didnt like each other at all, do you know if shes bothered to fix it?

And we said we hadnt got as far as turning the water on, because wed only just arrived and we were a bit preoccupied with moving boxes. And you said Well she better have. And then you walked off. And that was the last time you spoke to us all year, no matter how many times I smiled and hulloed you. So goodbye, neighbour.

Its been awfully neighbourish, and neighbourly and all, living upstairs from you. Sorry about the tuba, and the tapdancing, and my pet horse, I hope that we didnt disturb you too much – oh, and it turned out that she HAD fixed the overflowpipe, so I decided just to throw buckets of water out of the window every five minutes so number 1 wouldnt feel forgotten. Which reminds me: Did you get the burning poo I left in your letterbox? Yes? Oh smashing. I would hate you to feel overlooked, or ignored, or unwelcome. Well, Good bye number four, goodbye. And thank you.

Grudge? Me? Never.

Im going in a minute.
I may not be back for a few days, but Im not hiating so much as rehousing.
See you in a little bit.
Tell each other jokes or something.